Teikoku IPA and the Courthouse (N Melb)

Another trip to Melbourne afforded this correspondent an opportunity to enjoy the delights of the Courthouse, which is a self-proclaimed “Gastro Pub” in North Melbourne. @thecourt_house has appeared on these pages before, but got the briefest review after the briefest of visits. This time we were able to do it justice and enjoy a decent lunch there.

Carlton, but don't tell anyone

The Courthouse is a seriously well appointed. All furnishings and finishings have been thought through. The food and grog offered matches the surrounds. We dined and the menu is straight out awesome. I won’t detail the lunch (twitter followers copped a picture tale), but it was awesome. Combinations I hadn’t seen and I ate edible Brussels sprouts. What made the whole thing memorable was being able to order craft beers on tap as I went. It is a Melbourne pub so Carlton Draught is available, but they humourously don’t publicise this.

Classy fittings

Lunch was accompanied by Hargreaves Hill ESB, Mornington Peninsula IPA and 3 Ravens Uber Blond. All of these were magnificent. It is so good to enjoy these beers from the tap, and the line-up changes regularly. Had a good chat to the proprietor and he is an excellent chap

Edible Brussels sprouts

After the cracking lunch we retired to the bar for a final bevvy before getting the cab back to the airport. The Court House also offers a range of weird and wonderful beers in the stubbie and I was guaranteed to get something that hadn’t appeared on these pages. I went for a stubbie of Teikoku IPA, which is made by a craft brewer from Numazu, Japan called Baird Brewing Co. Husband and wife team that has been going since 2000. The website gives the full lowdown, but these guys are really living the dream and have opened some pubs including the intriguingly named the “Numazu Fishmarket Taproom”. The beer itself was a solid well bittered IPA. The problem the Teikoku IPA had was that it followed the Mornington IPA – which is an extremely hard act to follow. Very sessionable however, and there was sufficient strength to warrant trying another from the Baird Brewing range next time.